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I recently had the chance to catch Infernaeon live in support of the new album “A Symphony Of Suffering” to say the band was having a shitty tour would be an understatement. I looked on as the band played every single song off the cd to about 25-30 metalheads, the bar staff, and the other bands on tour….on a very crowded stage.

I hold a lot of respect for bands still willing to pay their collective dues in establishing themselves. Infernaeon from Ft. Lauderdale is no exception. They played to the small crowd with as much intensity and conviction as you would expect for a crowd of a thousand.

As a teenager I had a book by Henry Rollins called “Get In The Van” it pretty much sums up the tough life of traveling city to city in a stink box, beat up van. Making some sacrifices, occasionally getting shit on, but forging forward in something you believe in…

I spoke with Infernaeon vocalist Brian Werner and then bassist Kevin Gibbons and talking with them and hearing some of they’re many touring stories I was reminded of that book, and proud that some people out there care enough for the metal to hand deliver right to your city even if it means taking a loss…

Tell me about your tour so far…

Brian: We got banned in Fresno, I don’t know if I told you, We were banned in Fresno due to the content of our lyrics, the imagery of our merchandise as well as our stage show, I’ve never been so fuckin’ insulted in all my life. So there is no questions asked (just) “Fuck you…pay me” and I’m not playin’ and I absolutely refuse to censor any bit of our stage show whatsoever. Sons of Azrael felt the exact same as us, so both bands ended up cancelin’ the show in Fresno, California.

We apologize to all the fans out there that bought a ticket, this is one person trying to force his religious convictions on all the people that wanted to come and attend the show. Unfortunately I can’t submit to any censoring of anything we do regardless of what it is and I won’t do it.

What song in particular was the club owner objecting to?

B: Sleeping God. The promoter loved us, it was the owner of the club that wouldn’t let us play. He saw that we had a t-shirt that had a picture of the Virgin Mary that said “MILF” and he wanted us out of the building as soon as possible.

This whole fuckin’ tour has been a nightmare since day one. Day one was in Chicago, we played across the street from Hurt Locker and Lupara, Lupara has a video on Headbanger’s Ball, two of the heavy hitting local bands from Chicago playin’ 10 feet across the street from us, so that was night one.

Night two we get to fuckin’ St. Louis they don’t even have two of the band’s on the fuckin’ bill, and zero promotion done, they had us playin’ at a biker bar that could give two shit’s about death metal. We were the only band that DID play, we got screwed out of money in St. Louis, we were supposed to get $200.00 we got $30.00 and as soon as we got done playing we pissed off God and it rained immediately and Crematorium was not allowed to play.

We drive all the way to Topeka on day three, six hundred miles out of our way to find out the show was cancelled. After the Topeka ordeal, we get up to Omaha, Nebraska and once again we pissed off God and two tornadoes touched down in the city for the first time in seventy years.

Then we get up to Denver and no one has seen or heard from the promoter in several weeks, Moshpit Magazine, ya’know Moshpit Records…was three blocks away from the venue, and we never saw a poster, never saw a flyer, absolutely zero promotion done.

We had to turn around and drive from Denver to motherfucking Seattle 1,500 miles after we already trekked it 1,400 to Chicago. In Seattle we get screwed, actually Seattle was a good show but once again there was only about twenty people because of no promotion.

We play Portland, we get to Oakland we play in front of all the bands we’re on tour with once again because of no promotion, no flyers, no posters anywhere. After that, we did LA, LA was killer. Dismal Dan from Crematorium was the one handling the promotion for the LA show, so we had an awesome fuckin’ show in LA.

From LA, we got banned in Fresno like I said, then we did Sacremento, San Marcos where we played for the same bands on the fucking tour…it get’s pretty bad man, and then the icing on the cake was we did Alburquerque, we were supposed to play New Mexico and it got cancelled the day of the show, so we had two more off dates after that…We’re getting cancellations left and right because this guy never confirmed the shows…and this tour has been an absolute fuckin’ nightmare.

How has the reception to the debut album (A Symphony Of Suffering) been?

B: You know, the people that are showin’ up and are seein’ us are fuckin’ absolutely lovin’ it. Everybody is comin’ up to us sayin’ “Look, this is beyond original, I’ve never heard anything like you guys.” It’s killer, it’s got death metal, it’s got thrash metal, it’s got black metal in it. You know, there’s somethin’ for everybody in our music.

We bring out a good stage show with the severed goat heads, and all the blood and the prosthetics and shit. We give people a fuckin’ show, instead of four dudes up there in t-shirts and jeans just rockin’ out. We’re tryin’ to do somethin’ a little bit different and break new ground.

We got another U.S. tour leavin’ October 14th thru December 1st which is ourselves and local support. We’ll be goin’ through a different booking, different promotion through Prosthetic (Record Label). We’re tryin’ to get over to Europe with Malevolent Creation then there’s talk in the works of a possible U.S. tour with Soilent Green for next year….

Then we’re gonna start work on another album man, you know, this one’s done great, we had Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel) master it. Ben Falgoust from (Goatwhore, Soilent Green) did guest vocals on “The Oracle Of Armageddon” it was an honor to have him sing on a song we like to dedicate to Chuck Schuldiner, we’re from Florida and he was our friend….it was a tough loss man, it was an honor to have Ben come in and sing with us.

The next album we’re actually lookin’ to start workin’ with a full 80 piece orchestra and choir, so all these fuckin’ reviewers that wanna talk shit about us having keyboard I’m gonna be like “Fuck you bitch, we don’t have any keyboards, it’s an 80 piece orchestra! Suck my dick while I shoot you in the face!”

Our keyboard player actually goes to school for composition. Next year he has to compose an actual symphony for his final project. So he’s gonna write the whole symphony around our album. It’s gonna be something different. Total Florida death metal with a hint of Euro….always overtly Satanic.

Why did you leave Monstrosity?

B: I didn’t quit man I got fired. I’ll admit it. Most people try and beat around the bush and say “Well this happened and this happened.” You know I got a phone call one day that said they wanted to go in a different direction vocally than what I had to offer. No harm, no foul, no malice. Lee (Harrison – drums) was one of my best friends for many years man, and ….still is to this day.

Sam (Molina – ex guitars) quit Monstrosity for reasons unknown to me, he just wasn’t happy….he would have to answer that question for you I can’t speak for Sam.

What do you think of Lee Harrison collaborating with Midnight (Crimson Glory)?

Matt’s an awesome guitar player, I love Matt like a brother. He toured with Monstrosity in Europe, and he’s a very good friend of mine, but I can’t get behind Midnight man. I’m sorry.

Anything else you’d like to plug?

B: I’d also like to say thanks very much to Alan Steelgrave at ESP guitars for our full endorsement. Alan Steelgrave, yeah…. That motherfuckers the man for all three of our new guitars, as well as Engl amplifiers for all of our new amplification and as well as if it wasn’t for our fuckin’ Prosthetic (Records) family man, Jon, Fitz, Bob and EJ man we wouldn’t even be here fuckin’ doin’ any of this.

(and one last thing Brian wanted to add)

Michael Vick I’ll make you suck my cock in hell you fuckin’ piece of shit. I fuckin’ hope that when we both die I will drag your punk ass to hell and treat you like you treated those dogs you fuckin’ cocksucker.

So how did you hook up with Infernaeon?

Kevin: I actually was lookin’ at a flyer at Guitar Center, the band was called Legion at the time, I saw the flyer and went to try out for them and I liked what they were playing so I joined in on bass and ….from there we changed the name because there was already 20,000,000 Legions, we thought up band names for a while and came up with Infernaeon.

What kind of stuff were you playing before Infernaeon?

K: Before Infernaeon, I’m from New Jersey originally before I moved to Florida, I used to play in a band named Strychnine, it was like black/death metal with keyboards, a little symphonic….not as much as Infernaeon is but along the same lines.

I played in a metal band to named Beyond Deranged that never went to far. But I think I’m happy with Infernaeon.

In your opinion, what has the been the coolest city to play on the tour so far?

The coolest city was Portland, but probably my favorite show so far was Vegas.

What did you like about Portland?

K: Everybody there was crazy, just out of their minds, everybody, even the old women. There’s like old ladies walking around with like purple hair and shit….Everybody smokes pot, it’s funny.

How is your current Death Metal scene in Ft. Lauderdale?

K: The scene is cool, everbody that plays instruments is already in a band, and everyone at metal shows is in a band. You could have like 150 people at a metal show, but they’re all in other bands hahah….The metal scene is really good if you’re a musician.

There’s a lot of competition down there, everbody wants to be faster and heavier than everybody else. That’s cool it’s good for metal ya’ know.

What’s your favorite cd’s to listen to on tour?

K: Actually we lost all of our chargers for our mp3 players and we only have one speaker that works in the van.